Pulaski

A UK state pension is totally accessible from the US, and in fact is even better than if you were living in/ acessing your state pension from countries such as Canada, Australia, NZ, India, South Africa, etc, as a UK state pension paid in the US gets the annual increases, unlike the other countries where it is frozen.

Just to be clear, it is perfectly possible to qualify for full, un-WEPed, US SS payments and a full UK state pension without either one impacting the value or qualification for the other. That is what I am on track to do!

And both are paid irrespective of which country you are living in when you draw them. Also both can be deferred and allowed to further increase, so you might claim one if you only need lower income for a few years, and allow the other to keep on growing.

If you don't/ won't have 30 years of SS contributions then you will have to grapple with WEP, and it may be advantageous to draw and spend any UK pension funds (technically "pensions paid for with earnings not assessable for SS contributions") before claiming your SS, as non-US pensions are included in your WEP calculation, unless the account is fully drawn and spent when you start drawing SS.

Cjnorth1959

Do you have to pay taxes ?

durham_lad

Yes, and if you are resident in the UK then only UK taxes, it is not taxed by the IRS.

Cjnorth1959

Thank you for replying much appreciated